Page:Weird Tales volume 36 number 01.djvu/75

Rh quicker than the way I have chosen

That's all, Chambers; everything. Now you know—why I am as I am, why I act as I do. I trust that you will keep this—this confession to yourself?

John Chambers, who for almost half an hour had been talking in a steady, quiet monotone as he gave to me, as nearly as possible in Harry Pierce's own words, the peculiar confession Pierce had made to him in this same room twelve months earlier, paused abruptly in his narrative. Without a word, he rose from the davenport, took my glass and his own, walked over to the liquor cabinet and mixed two more drinks. He handed me mine; I nodded without speaking, and he went back to his place and reseated himself. Then he said, his voice still quiet, still restrained, though I knew his thoughts were racing:

"It was good of you to listen to me so long, Jerry, without interrupting. I'm glad you did, for I wanted you to get the complete picture without missing anything, no matter how insignificant some details may seem. There are details which may have vast significance, contrasted with others which may mean nothing; I thought it best to tell you everything that I remembered.

"Well, the rest of the story is told from my own viewpoint; it's exactly what I saw and heard. Pierce never again mentioned his odd confession to me and I of course also refrained from referring to it. And—it was just two weeks later that he finally broke.

"Funny how it came about. One of those jokes of Fate that are always happening and that none of us can foresee or guard against. It happened on a Friday evening, about eleven-thirty; I know it wasn't any later than that because I have to work on Saturday mornings and I was still sitting up, fully dressed, reading—when I heard this awful scream. It wasn't like anything human, I can tell you; it wasn't even recognizable as a man's or a woman's voice—it was more like a—like a fiend screaming in hell or a witch burning at the stake, maybe. It was loud; it stabbed into my ears like a knife—left them ringing for seconds afterward. I was out of my room and down the stairs in nothing flat, and everybody else in the house, too—!

"They were down in the front hall—Harry Pierce and two men who, it turned out, were Kenny Coates and Alicia's brother. Frank Castle, his name was. Frank Castle and this Coates were both holding Pierce by the arms to keep him from sagging to the floor; after that single scream Pierce hadn't screamed any more but there was froth on his lips and dribbling down his chin and his face was white as paper and streaming sweat. And his eyes; God!—they were the eyes of a trapped, maddened beast! And he was mumbling over and over, his mouth lax and drooling, his whole body trembling spasmodically, 'Yes, I did it, Alicia! I'll confess, Alicia; hear me, Alicia; I'll confess! I killed you, killed you with arsenic so slowly that nobody knew. I'll tell now, tell the world now that if they exhume your body they'll find enough arsenic in you to kill a dozen people! Hear me, Alicia; hear me! I'm confessing; God, I'm confessing! It's what you've wanted, all along, I know. You've won, Alicia; you've won; you've beaten me! I'm confessing, Alicia; I'm confessing that I killed you with arsenic—!'

"Over and over and over he went on, like a broken record.

, except for a few loose ends that's all there is to the story to date that you haven't already read in the papers. The confession came as a total surprise to me, of course, but I can see now how completely it explained things; explained Pierce's terrible nervousness, his peculiar insanity—everything. His conscience was hounding him every minute, day and